


growing pains

by Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Gen, Trans Female Character, Trans Marco Diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 18:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell/pseuds/Jace_Diaz_Of_Hell
Summary: at eleven years and nine months old, sol butterfly became crown princess.





	growing pains

“ _Princess Sol Ansiedad Butterfly,” began her mother. “Your older sister has rejected the wand and therefore given up the right to rule this Kingdom. Her birthright passes on to you, the second daughter of Mewni. Do you accept?”_

 

Sol was eleven years and nine months old when her sister threw away her right to rule- literally _threw_ it over her shoulder as she tried to leave the room. 

 

Sol had barely been paying attention- thinking about how Aunt Jackie had promised to take her out to the carnival next week. Wondering if she could convince her knight/babysitter Higgs to take her out of the castle for an afternoon- Higgs knew all the best places to play.

 

The wand hit Sol in her forehead, above her right eye, and Sol snapped to attention.

 

The wand had poofed into a new form when it hit her, and Sol caught a glimpse of blue and gold before it shifted back to the familiar form it had taken whenever in her Mum's hands.

 

Queen Star looked bewildered, and a couple of knights went to block the doors, the people of Mewni whispering for answers.

 

Cyclone turned on her heel, looked up at her parents with narrowed eyes and balled fists, ready for a fight. (She was  _always_ ready for a fight.)

 

“I don't want to be Queen.” She said, her words ringing in the suddenly quiet hall. “And I will not be Queen.”

 

Mama's eyes softened, the tension going out of her shoulders. She nodded at her wife, and Queen Star squared her shoulders, turning to face Sol.

 

Sol would forever remember the way her focus sharpened, as the sudden  _knowledge_ hit her. As of this moment, right now, she was no longer a child. 

 

“Princess Sol Ansiedad Butterfly,” began her mother.

 

Sol squared her tiny shoulders as best as she could, hoping no one noticed her hot pink dress had a tear in its hem or that she had dirt under her fingernails. When her mother finished, she spoke.

 

“I accept.” She said, and had her voice always sounded so _small,_ so _young?_

 

“Then on this day, I, Queen Star Butterfly, pass the wand on to you.”

 

Her Mama's voice came a beat after her Mum's.

 

“I, Queen Margot Butterfly, pass the wand on to you.”

 

She took the wand from the outstretched hands of her mothers and watched it form, claiming itself as hers until another Butterfly heir would come of age.

 

In her hands the wand shifted, reshaping itself to look like the  _tyets_ on her face, and it suddenly sank in how real it was.

 

Her parents were distracted, talking to a group of commoners, so Sol tried to control her shaking on her own, tried to hide her fear.

 

Cyclone saw, because Cyclone was fourteen and saw  _everything_ about Sol. No one knew Sol better than her older sister.

 

On later days she would cry at the kitchen table as her mama made nachos. She would pace back and forth, voice shrill with worry, until Higgs took her to the training grounds and made her blast dummies until the explosions were louder than the thoughts in her head. In later days, she would sit with her mother braiding her hair and quietly assuring her.

 

But today, on this first day, it was Cyclone who saw her panic and Cyclone who distracted her.

 

It was Cyclone who dragged her out into the garden, grabbing her wide array of tools and getting to work.

 

Sol sat down on the dirt and watched her sister garden, unable to find it within her to be mad at her sister.

 

Sol hadn't wanted this title, but she could be okay with it. She watched her sister pull up weeds and water plants, watched a peace settle on Cyclone's face she never saw outside the gardens, and made her choice.

 

Cyclone wanted to garden, so she would garden.

 

Sol had never known what she would do, and now she didn't have to wonder.

 

Once her hands had stopped shaking, Sol picked up the spellbook and headed inside.

 

It was so heavy in her small arms, but she opened the beginning of the book and found a little man staring at her.

 

“Huh. You're not the Butterfly I expected.”

 

“She's not going to be queen.” Sol blurted out. “My older sister, I mean.”

 

Glossaryck stared at her for a long moment, possibly sizing her up.

 

“And you are?”

 

Sol closed her eyes, feeling small, feeling young, feeling like she didn't matter.

 

But they called her mum Star the Underestimated, and they called her grandma Moon the Undaunted, and her mama Margot the Defender.

 

If her closest family could be defenders, underestimated and undaunted, then Sol could be something too.

 

She opened her eyes, nodding.

 

“I'm Sol Butterfly, and I'm going to be as good a queen as I possibly can.”

 

* * *

 

Sol had gotten lost one day, just a few days after her unexpected wand ceremony. She had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a room brilliantly lit, filled with tapestries, and her breath caught in her throat.

 

These tapestries were her families legacy. Celena the shy, Festivia the Fun, Solaria the monster carver...

 

She turned in a slow circle, wanting to see everything. And there, by the door, were her parents tapestries. Star the Underestimated. Margot the Defender.

 

Then there was a small dias, on which sat a large spool of thread, broken in half.

 

Next to that, her own tapestry was already beginning to stitch itself together. The border frame was brilliant golds and oranges, shot through with red thread, making Sol's fingers itch for her pastels.

 

There was a pillar shaped like her cheek emblems, with only her name carved in stone.

 

Sol finally remembered to breathe, and she watched a thread weave itself in to the tapestry, wondering what kind of a queen she would be.

* * *

 

 

“Did you see her? _That's the crown Princess.”_

 

Sol squared her shoulders, forced her eyes to be blank of emotion, though her hand tightened on both the wand and on Knight Higg's free hand.

 

She had been crown princess for just over three months, her twelfth birthday a scant week beforehand, when she decided she needed to see her Kingdom.

 

“She's so young.” A voice whispered, and Sol tried not to cringe. Higgs' large hand tightened around hers, comforting, and Sol looked around, her eyes wide open.

 

The areas were so poor. She had no idea they were this bad off.

 

The streets were _filthy,_ and the houses were falling apart, and Sol's people were sick.

 

When Sol got home, she went straight to a desk in the library and rang for parchment and a quill.

 

Bending over her paper, she stayed up until two in the morning writing out a plan to improve the housing conditions and make sure illness stayed down.

* * *

 

 

Blasting spells were _tough._

 

You had to have exactly the right aim, or you'd carve off pieces of the castle. And if you didn't have the proper stance, the recoil was _incredible._

 

Sol learned the hard way.

 

Her aim had been right, but just has she was reciting the spell a group of squires entered, and she glanced over, distracted for a moment.

 

The spell went off and sent her flying back maybe six feet before she fell, hitting her head off of the hard stone underneath her and knocking the breath straight out of her.

 

Sol blinked, staring up at the cloudless sky, and then one of the squire boys was there, holding out his hand for her.

 

“Are you alright, Princess?” He asked. “That spell looked like it packed quite a kick.”

 

Sol took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.

 

“I'm alright.” She managed to say. “Thank you.”

 

The squire's green eyes twinkled as he smiled at her, and then he was running back to his friends.

 

Sol stared after him, then shook her head to clear it.

 

She went back inside, first to the infirmary to check for a concussion, and then to reread the chapter on Blasting spells.

* * *

 

They called her youthful.

 

They looked at her frizzy hair and her nervousness and called her young, and Sol tried not to laugh.

 

It had been months since she felt truly young. These days she was just tired, and scared, with a stack of books half as tall as she was and bags under her eyes.

 

They called her young and Sol worried it was all they'd ever think of her.

* * *

 

 

When her mum brushed it in the mornings, her hair was straight. By three hours later, it was always a frizzy mess, because Sol tugged on it when she was thinking and she thought all the time.

 

Six months with the wand, and Sol realized that the ends of her hair had been bleach-burned a blonde-orange shade.

 

The only conclusion she came up with was that somehow, practicing magic had done this.

 

She shrugged and picked up her brush and scrunchie, sitting on the floor while her mother spoke with commoners and braided her hair back. Sol found herself listening to every word, watching how effortlessly her mothers tag-teamed every problem, coming up with near seamless solutions.

 

Sol _ached_ for someone who would help her figure out this whole Crown-Princess thing, someone who would have her back no matter what.

 

She ducked her head to wipe away the unexpected tears and cracked open the spellbook, deciding to work on one of Rhina the Riddled's puzzle spells.

 

* * *

 

 

She went back to the tapestry room and saw that her title had been carved in stone- Sol the Youthful.

 

She stared up at the tapestry- that gorgeous border was almost done- and tried not to cry.

 

Being a young queen was all people would ever know her for. And she hadn't even done that herself. It wasn't something she had earned, the ways her mother had earned Star the Underestimated ( _dragging herself back out of death, killing an immortal monster who had been a plague on their kingdom, bringing a god back to life, purifying the magic dimension after it had been grossly corrupted_ ) or how her other mother had earned Margot the Defender ( _always at Star's side, ready to fight, willing to risk using the wand to save her, willing to risk_ _ **everything,**_ _saving her mother time and time again_ ).

 

Her title, like everything else, was just one more thing that had been tossed at her.

 

Glossaryck sat on her shoulder, dribbling small drops of pudding on her dress. She couldn't bring herself to care about the mess. The knight of the wash could remove any stain, anyways.

 

“Hey, kiddo.” He said. “It could be worse. You could be Soupina the Strange.”

 

Sol let out a choked laugh, nodding, and Glossaryck shoved more pudding in his mouth.

 

“Come on. We've still gotta work on that levitation spell.”

 

Later, when she was making all of Cyclone's gardening tools levitate while hiding, she couldn't feel anything but sheer happiness for a moment.

 

* * *

 

 

Why was she on the roof again? The roof was _terrifying._

 

“Come on. You know how to summon Cloudee, now I want to see you do it under pressure.”

 

 

Sol nodded, took a step forwards and held her arms out-

 

and her flats slipped on the roof's tiles, sending her flying off the edge.

 

She let out an ear-shattering shriek, almost losing her grip on the wand, and screamed the spell, her eyes squeezed shut.

 

She didn't know it worked until she landed, bouncing slightly on the soft cloud, and opened her eyes.

 

 

She swallowed, trying to even out her breathing, taking in the view. The sun was beginning to set, the sky a myriad of colors, and it was so beautiful.

 

She turned around, using one of the summoning spells, and her pad of paper and a pack of pastels zoomed out to her.

 

Hours later, she landed on the ground and went back inside, chilled to the bone but relaxed for the first time in over a month.

 

Her hands were smeared with pastel, with the colors of twilight and the smudgy blues of a night sky, and Sol thought for the first time that she could do this.

 


End file.
